Ocean Redesign ULTRAFP Training for RAAF OPSO’s

Operations staff play an important role in supporting management with the planning and execution of a unit’s core capability. There many types of Operations within the RAAF alone, such as Flying Operations, Ground Training and Air Traffic Control. ULTRAFP is the planning and execution tool that is utilised by many units to manage their daily schedules and training requirements and boasts flexibility to adapt to the various types of operations.

Ocean Software’s FlightPro® product is a Command & Control Capability System (C2CS) managed under Headquarters Air Command’s ULTRA project, (hence ULTRAFP). Operations staff utilise ULTRAFP to support the Air Operations Commander with planning and coordination of RAAF operations. Both then and now, many OPS Staff require an understanding of the ULTRAFP system to facilitate their day to day tasks, particularly with flight operations and training units.

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While there has always been a component of the Operations Officer (OPSO) Initial Employment Training (IET) course that taught new OPSOs how to use ULTRAFP, it was apparent to Air Force Training Group (AFTG) that there was still a lot of “on the job” learning required for new OPSOs and Operations Staff once they reached their assigned Force Element Group (FEGs). This was leading to under-utilisation of ULTRAFP’s features which was impacting a unit’s ability to achieve maximum operational efficiency.

AFTG contacted Ocean Software with a view to increasing the ULTRAFP training component in the OPSO IET course at RAAF Base East Sale. By reviewing and tailoring course content around the individuals attending training, Ocean was able to deliver a comprehensive accelerated end user course in the same amount of time that it took to deliver the previous ULTRAFP course material.

In the process, Ocean produced a new course whereby the content can be tailored and lessons progressively expanded upon according to the specialist role of the trainee, be they Student, Air Crew, Instructor, Programmer or Subject Matter Expert. The new content has also been made available for the wider Airforce to access from the ULTRAFP Support Site on the Defence Restricted Network.

“By tailoring lesson plans around the ULTRAFP functionality that was relevant to a trainee’s core role we were able to ensure that the depth of knowledge at course completion was much higher, which enabled them to do their jobs much more effectively upon completing IET. This is proving to be more effective than trying to give each trainee an overview of the entire functionality of ULTRAFP, which is extremely broad,” said Heidi Storey, Field Service Representative from Ocean Software.

Trainees at the recently held RAAF Base East Sale course consisted of representatives from Ground Crew, Air Crew, Trainer, and Maintenance roles. During the course, they were able to gain relevant hands-on experience with ULTRAFP’s functionality through a live training environment (known as a Sandpit) and were also shown real world examples of problems and how ULTRAFP was used to resolve them for 32 SQN and 2FTS.

The trainees came out of the course giving it a thumbs up, saying that course content was kept interesting and gave them the confidence to use more of the functionality of ULTRAFP for their own roles, as well as exposing them to the diversity that ULTRAFP supports.